Lessons from Lizzie Warren

by Chip Jones342scon January 27, 2014

The 2012 Senatorial election in Massachusetts created for Republican operatives both an heartbreaking loss of a Senate seat taken just two short years previously, and a lesson of epic proportions, if we are courageous enough to learn it.

What is most painful to acknowledge is the fact that Elizabeth Warren was possibly the worst candidate ever fielded in a race of this magnitude in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in this consultant’s lifetime. The only way to describe her is to start by asking the reader a question: Does your family have an elderly aunt that no one in the family wants to have attended the family Christmas party? That elderly aunt is Elizabeth Warren.

More after the jump....

So the salient question is how did an obnoxious elderly aunt who falsified her minority status beat a likable moderate Republican incumbent in an otherwise liberal state? And one that had elected that Republican by a significant majority?

The answer is simple: excellent retail politics. Much in the same way that Walmart sells a majority of Americans products of less quality, so did the Warren campaign sell us an inferior Senator using principles that draw us to Walmart.

What is often ignored is how often Walmart magically has on special things we all want on a daily basis, and by bringing us in for those, they sell us things that aren’t such a great value. How do they know this? Walmart uses sophisticated microtargetting techniques to ascertain what will bring us in to their stores. The firms that deal in consumer microtargetting are plentiful in the retail realm and the technology to do so in the word of liberal politics is readily available.

A Boston based technology firm, NGP VAN, is available for Democratic and progressive (their words) campaigns. In fact, they recently purchased the Obama for America data and are making this available to the other side. If the reader clicks on the link above, he/she will not only see what is available in the software, but in the bar in the center, he will see that it contains “union organizing” data.

Bada Bing, Bada Bang. In that detail alone we learn that the other side is going to a large and motivated constituency and crafting an emotional message to produce a significant number of votes, based on the motivation created naturally by emotion. Is that different from Walmart appealing to people with “high need items” with the emotional appeal of value, al the while hiding other inferior products sold at or above market value?

Yet, while they are creating and producing highly motivated emotional voters, we, on the Republican side, are still trying to educate “low information voters” and motivate them to show up at the polls.

And we are losing…even the races we should logically win.

The time has come for us to change our rules. We have to begin creating our own emotional voters. Can that be done with high unemployment? Of course it can. Can that be done with people who are losing their healthcare? Of course it can. Can it be done with people tired lof government snooping in their private affairs? Of course it can. Can it be done with law abiding firearms owners? Of course it can!

The time has come for us to target those constituencies in the same way Walmart targets shoppers, or Lizzie Warren targeted voters, with advanced technology, creativity and a new outlook on “retail”. That’s what Asymmetrical Political Solutions has for you!